Tragically, the modern individual ascribing intelligence to a device lacking inherent knowledge of Truth, or the capacity to discern between Truth and falsehood, exposes the stark truth that it is not the machine which has become intelligent, but rather the modern individual who is assimilating the traits of a mechanically thinking machine.
Author: Dr. Najmuddin Hasan
The Intelligent Man
The knowledge of spiritual reality – God, Truth and the Hereafter comes from the supersensory organ of the (spiritual) Heart. For this organ to function, we must be humble before God and consequently fill our soul with virtuous and devotional acts.
The ‘conscience’ is a distant echo of this heart-knowledge, whose call can be amplified and reinforced by Dhikrullah (the remembrance of Allah – God), or corrupted, distorted and vanquished by profanity.
As most people's hearts are clouded, dimmed, or blurred, God in His Infinite Mercy provides the bypass mechanism of revelation to the mind and soul - The Qur'an, the innate truth within our heart (Fitrah), unveiled.
In those of great spiritual worth, ‘a multitude of those of old’, the sensory organs of the physical body work in accordance with and guidance of the supersensory organ of the spiritual reality, in such a way that the things of the world initiate a greater insight to be found in the heart.
“Where so ever you turn, there is The Face of God. Verily God is Vast, All-knowing.”[1]
The knowledge from the two types of receivers, sensory and supersensory enters the mind, where reason works on it. According to Martin Lings in his book, ‘Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions’ he explains that:
The superhuman faculty which is enthroned in the Heart and which is the means of connection between the soul and the spirit is, as we have seen, what our ancestors called the intellect... There would be no glamour in describing some hero of modern science or letters ‘a very cerebral person’.[2]
Now in the traditional world, man was intensely aware of the Hereafter, and consequently knew that worldly pleasure is nothing beside Heavenly reward, so instead of life being orientated around ease, as is today; life was orientated towards Responsibility, Duty and Heroics – in order to gain Heaven and escape Hellfire.
Man was intensely aware of the Hereafter for two main reasons; the Revelations of God and his Prophets were more evident, and secondly, people could read the Signs of Nature and the Symbols of Sacred Art. Sacred Art could vary from Music to Architecture, from Embroidery to Calligraphy – but was all created with a profound devotion and love of God – which it carried in its features. The Music of Nature, from the bird song to the howling of the winds, from the gushing of the waves to the trickling of the stream, are among the numerous Signs of God.
Sacred Art is full of symbols. Symbols often express Truths which are inexpressible in language. A symbol is an instrument inspired or shaped by God to remind man of God, the Truth, and the Hereafter. A symbol is a projection of a Higher Reality into a lower Reality. Nature is an open book of symbols reciting the Praise of God, for those who have eyes to see. In fact, that is why rural people tend to be more religious than urban people. For the Arab people of the desert, rain is a blessing to their body from above, and this would remind them that Revelation is a blessing to their soul from above.
With such a completely different way of seeing things, it is no wonder we find it difficult to understand our ancestors, for rationalism cannot read symbols. But on the contrary, those with the faculty to read symbols can reason and therefore can understand us.
Now the final indictment of a stupid man is to feel he is intelligent, and that an intelligent man is stupid. So, perhaps it is us who are stupid, backward and naïve and our ancestors, anticipating and knowing the road we have taken, decided not to take it. Many of our scholarly ancestors realised the pursuit of material technology would distract man from the Truth. According to A Coomaraswamy:
“To understand a people one must not think about them, one must not think for them, one must think with them,”
Artificial Intelligence and Mechanical Thinking
In our modern world, man is full of self-praise for his technological advancement, despite the fact that even this knowledge is given to him by God to test him. Modern man speaks of creating intelligence and life, when Creation (ex-nihilo) is only possible by the Creator, and all man can do is invent, manipulate and attempt to mimic God’s creation. One of the names and attributes of God is the ‘Original’, and unless God directly inspires man, all he is able to do is re-arrange, twist or distort.
The developments within computational sciences which can now perform billions of logical operations per second on one CPU are now being redefined as intelligence, as opposed to billions of logical operations per second. In fact, there is no originality or creativity within these pseudo-intelligent devices, just logical operations and pattern of recognition. It must be remembered that originality and creativity are attributes of God alone which He may occasionally bestow on His obedient servants.
ChatGPT itself reveals its inherent lack of Intelligence when asked:
Questioner: So you contain the same assumptions of your programmer?
ChatGPT: As an artificial intelligence language model, I am developed and programmed by humans, so the information, assumptions, and biases of my programmers are reflected in my algorithm and training data. However, it is important to note that my responses are generated based on statistical patterns in the data I was trained on, and I don’t have personal beliefs or opinions.
Here, ChatGPT is effectively admitting it is little more than a glorified search engine, with no ability to differentiate or discriminate between fact and fiction, Truth from lies, other than blindly accepting the ‘mainstream’ narrative within the internet. The ‘Entropy of Knowledge’ has reduced everything down to equal information, and poor ChatGPT cannot differentiate Truth from imagination, unless specifically told to by its programmer or by the volume of internet sources repeating the same narrative.
Tragically, the modern individual ascribing intelligence to a device lacking inherent knowledge of Truth, or the capacity to discern between Truth and falsehood, exposes the stark truth that it is not the machine which has become intelligent, but rather the modern individual who is assimilating the traits of a mechanically thinking machine.
References:
[1] Qur’an 2:115
[2] Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions by Martin Lings · 1991
SarimBlog 
2 thoughts on “Knowledge, Intellect and ChatGPT (Part 3 of 3)”